Iwatsu Electric, Co., Ltd.(岩崎通信機株式会社,Iwasaki
Tsūshinki Kabushiki-gaisha
?)TYO: 6704 is a Japanese electronics manufacturer founded 14
August 1938, whose primary focus is on the following three business
domains:

Contents

History

Originally starting up as a telephone manufacturer, Iwatsu had
been a long time supplier to the public Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone company. The company has enjoyed growth along the
public NTT, expanding its products to radio communication
equipment, oscilloscopes, and in the 1961, their first reprographic
system.

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Seiichi
Iwasaki: Founder

Seiichi Iwasaki was born in 1895 in Shimane, Japan. As a
teenager, he moved to Tokyo
without his family. He worked by day to support himself and went to
school by night. Whilst in school, he became the leader of a circle
of like-minded friends, which they called Hatenkai.
Together, they vowed to succeed in the future.

Iwasaki dropped out of school in 1912 and began his military
service in 1913 in Okayama--which he completed in three years.
Then he moved to Hokkaidō where he started his career as an
entrepreneur. His ventures in Hokkaidō stretched from railroads to
coal mines, until the year 1933 when he changed his course and came
back to Tokyo again.

1930s

Seiichi Iwasaki was running a small business called Iwasaki
Kogyo in the Yoyogi
neighborhood of Tokyo for manufacturing and selling cables. Iwasaki
realized that in order to stay in business, he needed to follow the
national policy and produce what the country needed at the
time.

The first focus was on anti-induction telephones. In the 1930s,
the telephone infrastructure in Japan was primarily used by the
railroad industry, the police, the utility industry and the mining
industry. The telecommunications infrastructure was so poor that it
had to rely on power lines and railway cables--upon which telephone
signals were superimposed. Because the telephone signals were
susceptible to inductive interference and noise and the defective
wiring in the long lines caused too much signal loss, normal
telephone conversations were difficult. Iwasaki Kogyo set out to
develop an anti-induction telephone to solve this problem, whilst
running the cable manufacturing operations. Similarly, Iwasaki
Kogyo focused on secure, anti-tapping telephones.

Motivated by these opportunities, he started looking for
engineers. Luckily he knew engineers from the members of
Hatenkai: Minoru Tokoha and Motosaburo Hashimoto. When he
talked to them, they both showed strong interest. With the help of
these two engineers, he set up a lab in his own house in Yoyogi to
develop the two kinds of special-purpose telephones.

After six months, Tokoha and Hashimoto introduced Iwasaki to
Kokichi Hayakawa, the television research chief at the Faculty of
Electrical Engineering at Waseda University. With the addition
of Hayakawa, the development of special-purpose telephones speeded
up and the anti-induction telephone and then the anti-tapping
telephone were completed by the middle of 1937. (Hayakawa later
became the first chief engineer/vice president of Iwatsu.)

The sales of anti-induction telephones started in October 1937,
and the police, the Ministry of Railway, the power industry, the
railroad industry and the mining industry welcomed the product.
Demand quickly outstripped capacity, forcing Iwasaki to extend the
factory. Iwasaki knew that a privately-owned business was not
enough to meet such high demands and decided to incorporate a
company. On August 14, 1938, the inauguration ceremony of Iwasaki
Tsushinki (communication instruments) was held at Iwasaki's own
house. (The name Iwatsu became the official abbreviation for
Iwasaki Tsushinki in 1967.)

Initially, there were 50 employees. They were manufacturing the
said telephones and carrier-current telephones, plus components
(relays, transformers, capacitors, etc.) necessary for making the
telephones. Because the small factory, though extended, couldn't
handle the increasing orders anymore, a new, bigger factory was
built in 1939 in Karasuyama, Tokyo. The production department was
moved to this new factory, leaving the other operations in Yoyogi.
Around this time, the number of employees increased to
approximately 200.

1940s

Iwatsu was one of the three companies (including Hitachi and NEC) ordered by the army to develop a radar warning
system. Because the Karasuyama factory was already running at full
capacity, Iwatsu had no choice but to build even bigger factories.
Kugayama, Tokyo was selected as the site to build new
factories along with the headquarters, which were completed in
1943. Kugayama is the
location of the current Iwatsu headquarters.

The development of the radar
warning system was lead by Chief Engineer Hayakawa, and after
excruciating efforts by the engineers, a prototype was completed in
1944. The prototypes from the three companies were tested by the
army, and Iwatsu's prototype got the honor of being the best in
performance. Iwatsu was ordered to mass-produce the systems, which
were installed across the country.

As a high-school dropout, Seiichi Iwasaki knew the importance of
education. Iwatsu began building schools on the corporate campus,
providing young factory workers with education. The schools also
served as a training center for future engineers of Iwatsu.

The end of World
War II was a huge turning point for Iwatsu. Seiichi Iwasaki
laid down the company's future plan and gave the devastated
employees a new hope. The plan was to make a quick transition to
manufacturing consumer goods, starting with common-battery
telephones. However, the transition didn't go smoothly. Starting
the development of new products (of which Iwatsu had no experience)
from scratch was hard enough; rampant inflation and constant lack
of materials didn't help, either. When Iwatsu finally got the first
approval for the common-battery telephone among other three
products from the Ministry of Communications and made delivery in
1947, the employees' excitement reached its peak. It gave them hope
in the days of confusion and starvation.

However, the company's livelihood was in danger. Iwatsu was
knee-deep in debt, frequent demonstrations were held by a
newly-formed labor union, and many jobs had to be cut. Faced with
the severe financial difficulties, Seiichi Iwasaki and other
company officials decided to give up the fight for saving the
company.

On March 10, 1949, Tadashi Adachi and Takao Yoshida were brought
in to be the president and the senior executive vice president,
respectively, in hopes of reviving the company. Drastic changes had
to be made, such as selling off assets and properties and laying
off employees, in order to lay the groundwork for a solid business
base.

1950s

After World War II, rebuilding the devastated communications
infrastructure was ordered by the General Headquarters of the
Allied Forces (GHQ) and became one of the country's top priorities.
Iwatsu took full advantage of the situation and focused on
developing and manufacturing telephones.

Iwatsu's production facilities made significant advancements
with the introduction of quality control and belt conveyors. The
foundation for increasing production was laid.

Iwatsu established its position as a telephone manufacturer.
Iwatsu delivered magneto telephones and dial telephones to the
Ministry of Telecommunications, and aircraft radio communications
accessories to the Japanese Ministry of Defense.

Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone (NTT) Public Corporation, founded by the Japanese
government in 1952, opened a big market for subscriber telephones
and became Iwatsu's biggest client. NTT also allowed telephone sets and PBX systems to
be commercially available in Japan. Iwatsu opened one branch office
after another across Japan over four years to build a nation-wide
sales network.

Iwatsu was ready to venture into new challenges again. The Far
East Air Material Command (FEAMCOM) in Tachikawa, Tokyo was in
need of more oscilloscopes (which were scarce and not so
advanced at the time) for testing their radar systems. The FEAMCOM
cooperated with Iwatsu in developing Japan's first oscilloscope. This
oscilloscope's greatest advantage was its ability to hold a
waveform still on the CRT, making it easier for the user to observe
and measure the waveform. Iwatsu named it Synchroscope, and the
first model was delivered to the Ministry of Defense in 1954.

TV broadcasting started in Japan in 1953. NHK (or Japan Broadcasting Corporation) requested
Iwatsu to develop a new oscilloscope for TVs because oscilloscopes were essential for measuring
TV signals and Iwatsu was the only domestic oscilloscope manufacturer at the time.
Iwatsu's Synchroscope continued to evolve in response to new
demands, such as larger CRTs and higher frequency ranges.

President Adachi accepted his new position as the president of
Radio Tokyo and resigned his position at
Iwatsu. Yoshida became the third president and Kanichi Ohashi
became the executive vice president of Iwatsu in 1955.

During this high-growth period, Iwatsu's capital increased from
1,000,000 yen (in 1951) to 200,000,000 yen (in 1957). Iwatsu's
stock price kept rising and started to get attention. Iwatsu went
public in 1953 and became listed on the first section of the Tokyo
Stock Exchange in 1957.

President Yoshida, who had been the driving force behind
Iwatsu's revitalization ever since he became part of the company,
was also asked to serve as the president of Fuji
Heavy Industries where he originally came from. It became
extremely hard for him to look after two companies at the same time
because Fuji Heavy Industries started
their production of motor vehicles in full swing, so he remained as
the president of Fuji Heavy Industries and became
the chairman of the board of Iwatsu, in effect, stepping down from
his active role at Iwatsu. Kanichi Ohashi assumed his position as
the fourth president of Iwatsu in 1958. Ohashi's inauguration
marked the end of Iwatsu's long postwar reconstruction period and
the beginning of a new era.

President Ohashi visited the United States in 1959 to see the
trends in the American telephone industry. He found out key
telephone systems were already in actual use and was convinced that
the key telephone system was the next new thing in the telephone
market in Japan. Iwatsu had been working on the development of a
key telephone system and the first practical system (with five
trunks and ten stations) was delivered to NTT Public Corporation
that year.

1960s

Iwatsu was seeking the third signature product following
telephones and oscilloscopes. After years of research in Europe and
the U.S., Iwatsu took notice of RCA's electrostatic printer and copier technology
(electrofax). Iwatsu signed a patent license with RCA and began research and development of what was
seemingly unrelated to Iwatsu's then-existing technologies. The
idea behind this decision was that there wasn't much difference in
terms of communications, whether electronic or on paper.

Iwatsu's first dry-type electronic reprographic machine ELEFAX PC
201 was introduced at Tokyo Business Show in 1960. The next model
ELEFAX PC 301 was shown at International Trade Fair and officially
released in 1961. Iwatsu was the 13th company in the world to
undertake the research of electrophotographic technology, but
Iwatsu came in fourth to actually release a product based on such
technology.

A new plating-and-coating plant was built in 1961 in order to
modernize and streamline the plating/coating processes of
ever-increasing telephone production. With the help of Fujikasui
Engineering, the plant was designed with a proactive approach to
prevent pollution, namely, an innovative wastewater treatment
system. The plant became a model for such facilities, and thousands
of people from various industries came to visit. President Ohashi
placed emphasis on research and development, while Former President
Yoshida had focused on increasing production capacity. Ohashi's
belief led to the completion of a technical research lab in
Hachioji, Tokyo in 1964. Still, Iwatsu's production facilities kept
expanding in order to meet growing demands for subscriber
telephones.

The Iwatsu telephone production hit the 50,000 sets per month
mark in June 1964. An accumulated total of 1,000,000 sets were
manufactured by October 1965. An accumulated total of 2,000,000
sets were manufactured by June 1967. In December 1967, Iwatsu was
producing 80,000 sets per month, and the number of employees
increased to 2,800.

The current Kugayama
main building at the Iwatsu headquarters was completed in March
1966, replacing the old wooden building. The reinforced concrete
building is five stories high with one basement level. It took
strong determination and efforts to build such a building in the
middle of a recession. The new main building was a testament to the
endurance of employees who supported the company throughout postwar
uncertainty.

An international bid was conducted by the Kuwaiti government in
1967 as part of its plan to expand telephone services. Iwatsu won
the 50,000,000-yen bid, beating strong competitors from England, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Germany, etc. Iwatsu exported key telephone
systems to Kuwait. It was
Iwatsu's first mass-export of key telephone systems.

Iwatsu celebrated its 30th anniversary in 1968. A commemorative
exhibit showing all divisions' historic products was held in Tokyo.
It drew in over 13,000 people. A big party was also held in Tokyo,
inviting 750 prominent people from various fields.

Seiichi Iwasaki, the founder of Iwatsu, passed away at the age
of 74 on September 25, 1969. The corporate funeral for him was held
four days later. Representatives from all walks of life came and
paid their respects. Toshio Iwata became the fifth president of
Iwatsu in November 1969. Ohashi became the chairman of the
board.

1970s

Iwatsu continued to expand its production and export. Kyushu
Iwatsu and Fukushima Iwatsu were established for manufacturing key
telephone systems and associated components. Iwatsu Seimitsu was
established for manufacturing and selling switches for measurement
instruments. Iwatsu became partners with Rex Rotary of Denmark and
exported ELEFAX to 77 countries. Iwatsu tied up with a Taiwanese
company to export telephone manufacturing technologies and start
production in Taiwan.

The Trade Department under the supervision of the Sales Division
became independent as the International Department in April 1974
for promotion of export and expansion into international markets.
Although export to the U.S. marked a record high in 1973 (the year
the energy crisis hit), accurate information from the U.S.
distributors was not readily available, which was a problem for
planning new products in Japan. Iwatsu decided to establish direct
sales in America. Iwatsu America (now Iwatsu Voice Networks) was
established in New
Jersey in December 1975.

A wooded area of Iwatsu headquarters premises was named Iwatsu
Garden and opened to public in 1974 as a contribution to the
community. It became a relaxation/recreation area for the people in
the surrounding area.